Stephen Curry shone for television, Andrew Wiggins scored a spectacular dunk over Luka Doncic and the Warriors are already thinking about sweeping the series.
Curry scored 31 points, Andrew Wiggins added 27 and the Golden State Warriors beat the Dallas Mavericks 109-100 on Sunday to take a 3-0 lead in the Western Conference finals.
“He looks like Dominiquie Wilkins out there,” Klay Thompson said of Wiggins. The Warriors looked on the verge of another NBA Finals, three years after a five-year run that brought them three championships.
Thompson scored 31 points, including two big 3-pointers in the final quarter, and the Warriors moved within a win of returning to the NBA Finals three years after ending a streak of five consecutive trips, in which they added three championships.
Golden State, which swept Portland in its most recent trip to the conference finals in 2019 before Toronto clinched the title, will look to wrap up the series in Game 4 on Tuesday in Dallas. No team has ever come back from a 0-3 deficit to win an NBA playoff series.
“I love the position we’re in,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “I love the fact that our team came and got the win tonight.”
Doncic scored 40 points, including a long 3-pointer in the last second of the first quarter that sent the fans into a frenzy, with the Mavericks down 2-0 again at home, just as they were against Phoenix before winning the semifinal series in seven games. .
But the shot lost context in a difficult long-range evening for the Mavericks, who missed their first seven attempts and finished 13 of 45.
Wiggins’ one-handed dunk over Doncic midway through the fourth quarter was initially designated an attacking foul because his elbow made contact near Doncic’s neck, causing him to fall backward. But the replay, at Kerr’s request, determined it was accidental contact and the basket put Golden State up 93-83.
“I took a little hit, but that was awesome,” Doncic said. “I am not going to lie. I watched the video again and was like, ‘Oh…’ It was pretty amazing.”
Reggie Bullock and Maxi Kleber, two specialists behind the arc for Dallas, missed all 12 of their 3-point attempts and went 0-for-15 from the field. Both finished without points, nullifying Spencer Dinwiddie’s 26 goals from the bench. Jalen Brunson finished with 20 points.